Humor Short

It is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad?

From the highly acclaimed author of Edisto and The Interrogative Mood, Padgett Powell's new collection of stories, Cries for Help, Various Stories, follows his mentor Donald Barthelme's advice that "wacky mode must "break their hearts". The surrealistic and comical terrain of most of the 44 stories here is grounded by a real preoccupation with longing, fear, work, loneliness, and cultural nostalgia. These universal concerns are given exhilarating life by way of Powell's "wit, his...dazzling turns of phrase" (Scott Spencer).

Within these diverse stories, you will encounter a magician whose finale is murder, shared nightmares, a magic carpet that lives up to its name, a recipe for a Martian non-vegetarian main course, a cook who purloins the body of a stranger, and other interesting topics and characters. A few can be classified as horror stories, one as science fiction, and the majority just plain quirky. There's a story here to amuse almost anyone.

A writer Time magazine has said "everybody should read", Sam Lipsyte, author of the New York Times best-selling The Ask, offers up The Fun Parts, a book of bold, hilarious, and deeply felt fiction. A boy eats his way to self-discovery, while another must battle the reality-brandishing monster preying on his fantasy realm. In another story, an aerobics instructor, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, makes the most shocking leap imaginable to save her soul. These are just a few of the tales, some first published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Playboy, that unfold in Lipsyte’s richly imagined world.

In You Will Never Be Forgotten, Mary South explores how technology can both collapse our relationships from within and provide opportunities for genuine connection. Formally inventive, darkly absurdist, savagely critical of the increasingly fraught cultural climates we inhabit, these 10 stories also find hope in fleeting interactions and moments of tenderness. They reveal our grotesque selfishness and our intense need for love and acceptance, and the psychic pain that either shuts us off or allows us to discover our deepest reaches of empathy.

These stories attest to the generous compass of Thomas McGuane's fellow feeling, as well as to his unique way with words. In this collection, filled with grace and humor, the ties of family make for uncomfortable binds: A devoted son is horrified to discover his mother's antics before she slipped into dementia, and a father's outdoor skills are no match for a change in the weather. But complications arise equally in the absence of blood, as when lifelong friends on a fishing trip finally confront their deep dislike for each other.

What did it mean for Christmas, now that Krampus would be taking the reins? Nothing good, everything bad. That's what.

Hollywood and Broadway are icons of the American Dream. But what happens to those who feed off that dream? Just as drug cartels have many underlings who must get paid along the journey to the addicts, so do the characters who need to be nourished by the luminaries who make up this star-studded world above us. James Musgrave’s collection of 11 stories, in many ways, addresses the theme of “star power”, but in a way that satirizes the stereotypical “Hollywood endings” in very unique and literary ways.

Ebola Saves the Planet! and Other Wholesome Tales is a collection of 11 wild tales from the mind of Matthew A. Clarke.

This anthology consists of 50 stories, which are separated into four series, as well as independent stories.

In compiling this collection of humorous short stories by both well known and more obscure authors, Alexander Jessup applied a broad interpretation of humour; the stories span the period between 1839 and the beginning of the first World War.

O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.

This book consists of 27 short stories of murder, mystery and mayhem. This is book one in a series of eight short story compilation books.

Poder escuchar historias en ésos trayectos cortos que diariamente hacemos en el tren, metro, coche etc. se va a hacer muy agradable de la maño de Flora Smith, en este recopilatorio de sus relatos.Vamos a poder conocer a Ana Sicosi, una mujer obsesiva que sube siempre en la misma estación de la parada de Sants o Andresito qué se baja siempre en la estación de Atocha distraído con su móvil sin mirar a su alrededor, o lo mejor navegaremos por Matalascañas en Cádiz en una barcaza y nos encontremos a un par de amantes apasionados y no os extrañé qué escuchando éstos relatos os podais encontrar también con algún pirata.

It's junior year and Rachael is psyched to ditch dorm life and share a house with four other girls. But, she can't shake the ominous feeling about her narcissistic roommate-landlady, who has a history of derailing her love life. And then there are those uninvited visits by the ex-boyfriend of another roommate, who brings brushes with the law and heaps of drama as his calling card. When Rachael's mother and her psychic groupies show up in their double-decker bus during a house party, Mom reveals a troubling premonition.

E.E. King offers a unique perspective on life, love and sometimes the meaning of the universe. This exuberant collection of short fiction and a novella is often hysterical, occasionally tragic and always thoughtful. Funny and dark, these tales will have you up all night.

Surprising and revealing, set along the East Coast from Maine to Key West, Ann Beattie's astutely observed new collection explores unconventional friendships, frustrated loves, mortality, and aging.

Few authors in America write with such sheer love of story, language, and imagination as T.C. Boyle, and nowhere is that passion more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and widely praised short stories. In After the Plague, Boyle speaks of contemporary social issues in a range of emotional keys. Presented with characteristic wit and intelligence, these 16 stories will delight readers in search of the latest news of the chaotic, disturbing, and achingly beautiful world in which we live.

Amalia Guglielminetti (1881 –1941) fu una scrittrice e poetessa italiana, nota forse più per il suo legame con Guido Gozzano che per i suoi scritti. Eppure di lei Graf scrisse: «la sua ispirazione è viva, schietta, delicata quanto più si possa dire, e l'arte la seconda a meraviglia. Quelle sue figure di fanciulle e donne son cose di tutta gentilezza, e molti sonetti son di squisita fattura.

For sheer unpredictable brilliance, Gogol may come to mind, but no author alive today takes a listener as far as Helen DeWitt into the funniest, most yonder dimensions of possibility. Her jumping-off points might be statistics, romance, the art world’s piranha tank, games of chance and games of skill, the travails of publishing, or success.